Tuesday 4/23, 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM

Evening reception and Keynote Speaker at the Radisson Hotel, Heritage 1 Room

(808 20th St. South, Birmingham -- corner of 20th St. South and University Blvd.)

Keynote presentation by Rodney Grubbs, Chairman, NASA DTV Working Group

powerpoint file

http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/DTV/

Rodney is responsible for NASA's transition to digital television. He is chairman of the NASA DTV Working Group, and principal investigator for HDTV test flights in space. He has received the "Silver Snoopy" award and "NASA Exceptional Achievement" medal. Rodney has also won three Addy awards as a writer and producer; consulted on several feature films, television series, and documentaries; and has screen credits on "Apollo 13" and "Austin Powers II".

ViDe BOF, 8:00 -9:00, Heritage 1 room following reception and speaker.
Welcome to ViDe
Jill Gemmill ViDe Chair and Doug Pearson,
ViDe Chair-Elect
Welcome new ViDe Members

Wednesday 4/24, 8 AM until 8 PM

Morning Session: Pioneering the Use of Digital Video in Education & Research Today (8:30 AM - 2:30 PM)

Session Chair: Jill Gemmill, UAB

7:00 AM

Full breakfast served in the Great Hall at Hill University Center. Shuttles will run from the Radisson Hotel to Hill University Center from 7:00 until 7:30 AM.

8:00 AM

Welcoming remarks from SURA (Jerry Draayer, SURA President) in the Hill University Center Alumni Auditorium.

Jerry P. Draayer has been President of SURA since January 1999. SURA is a consortium of 53 universities in the southern United States including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Among its most important programs, SURA manages and operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) for the Department of Energy.

Prior to his current leadership at SURA, Dr. Draayer was on the Louisiana Board of Regents as the Associate Commissioner for Sponsored Programs Research & Development. Jerry has for 25 years served as a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University, and he also holds a joint appointment as a professor in the Department of Computer Science.

8:10 AM

Louisiana's Interactive & Collaborative Research Network (Kenneth Tanner, LSU Health Sciences Center - Shreveport) powerpoint file

Presentation on the creation and ongoing development of the interactive and collaborative research network deployed in Louisiana. The network consist of 12 higher ed research institutions with Louisiana all using H.323 to interact and collaborate. Internet 2 is the backbone used for the H.323 transport so the institutions not only interact amongst themselves but also to other Internet 2 institutions. We have also incorporated a management system and a data collaboration tool.

http://www.sh.lsuhsc.edu/h323

Kenneth Tanner is the Network Coordinator of the Louisiana Interactive & Collaborative Research Network, a statewide H.323 network that includes 72 H.323 systems distributed across 12 higher ed institutions. He has worked in the area of videoconferencing for 11 years with the last three being primarily involved with H.323. He has both, designed and installed videoconferencing networks as well as managed them. He is currently employed by LSU Health Sciences Center - Shreveport and holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from UAB.

8:30 AM

Using IP Video for Virtual Presence During Laparoscopic Surgery (Jerome Johnson, Department of Surgery, Ohio State University) powerpoint file

After a brief Powerpoint presentation, we will connect to a minimally invasive operating room at University Hospital, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, where we will interact with the surgical team during a laparoscopic operation. We will demonstrate the various tools we have adapted to IP video and discuss the use of this technology for distant collaboration and consultation in the surgical field. We will also compare and contrast quality of signal at various bandwidths and discuss minimal standards for surgical collaboration.

Dr. Jerome (Jerry) Johnson received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Boston College (1971) and his doctorate in pathology (clinical chemistry, 1979) at the Ohio State University. He has held faculty positions in the Department of Surgery, Ohio State University (1979-81), and in the Division of Endocrinology, Internal Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas (1981-1987) . While at Baylor he also served as administrative director of the Internal Medicine Specialty Laboratories of the Methodist Hospital, Houston.

He traveled back to Ohio in 1987 as the technical director of the core laboratory of the Ohio Digestive Disease Institute of Grant medical Center (Columbus, Ohio) and eventually became the administrative director of the Institute. He returned to the Ohio State as a research scientist in the Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, in 1993 and was given the additional responsibility of divisional coordinator for General Surgery. In 2000, he became the Administrator of the Department of Surgery working with his chairman, Dr. E. Christopher Ellison.

Dr. Johnson has a current interest in using IP video for distance education, collaboration, and eventually, consultation in laparoscopic surgery. He will be demonstrating work that has taken place with a group of collaborators at Ohio State over the last three years.

9:00 AM

Evaluation of IP Video Technologies for Telemedicine - the East Carolina University Experience (Scott C. Simmons, M.S., The Telemedicine Center, Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University) powerpoint file

The rapid growth of the installed base of personal computers (PCs), corporate and academic computer networking, and subsequently the commonplace use of the Internet/World Wide Web, have resulted in the pervasive adoption of Internet Protocol (IP) communications (i.e. packet-based). Telemedicine systems, however, still largely rely on circuit-switched networks for videoconferencing (e.g. leased T1's or ISDN). The East Carolina University (ECU) Telemedicine Center, supported by several grants and contracts, has assessed IP videoconferencing coder/decoders (H.323, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2), quality of service (QOS) mechanisms, and real-time encryption technologies. In addition, the ECU Telemedicine Center has transitioned several operational clinical sites to IP. This presentation will address the Center's experience with IP video technologies and their associated pitfalls and promises.

Scott received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University and his M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Houston. He was the Supervisor of Advanced Projects for Wyle Laboratories at NASA's Johnson Space Center and was the lead inventor of the Telemedicine Instrumentation Pack (TIP), the first space-certified telemedicine system. He moved to CyberMDx, Inc., a firm formed to commercialize the TIP, and served as the V.P. of Operations. Presently, Scott is the Director of Engineering for the East Carolina University Telemedicine Center and the co-chair of the American Telemedicine Association's Technology SIG. His current research and development projects involve medical device interoperability, digital videoconferencing, wireless networking, and alternative telemedicine platforms.

9:30 AM

Coffee break in the Great Hall

10:00 AM

Broadband Visual Communication for Learning Communities (Martin Brooks, National Research Council of Canada)

Work with high school students, high school teachers, and advanced violin students has provided us with some valuable insights into the unique and advantageous attributes of broadband visual communication. This talk will briefly review our experience and describe new knowledge that we have gained.

Dr. Martin Brooks leads the Broadband Visual Communication Research Program at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). Dr. Brooks has previously led NRC's Interactive Information Group, and the Knowledge Systems Laboratory. Prior to coming to NRC in 1991, Dr. Brooks carried out research in software engineering, artificial intelligence, and robotics at SINTEF, in Oslo Norway. Dr. Brooks has a BS in Mathematics from MIT, and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.

10:25 AM

Ethnographic Filmaking/"Guerilla Filmaking in Anthropology" (Rosie O'Beirne, University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Urban Affairs;Michele Forman, award winning documentary filmmaker; Lori Cormier, anthropologist) powerpoint file

Innovative partnership between the Anthropology and Art departments that teaches students to produce a digital video community education site called "The Street," hosted at the McWane Center Science Museum; an on-site kiosk will show student films to demonstrate what can be taught in a single semester course.

Rosie O'Beirne is a research associate at the Center for Urban Affairs at UAB. She is the co-director of The Street Project, a multi-media exhibit developed through the partnership of the McWane Center and UAB.

Michele Forman is an award winning independent filmmaker. She gained her experience as Spike Lee's Associate producer on the Academy Award nominated documentary Four Little Girls and was also highlighted in Newsweek as one of the fifteen women to watch in the 21st Century.

Dr. Loretta Cormier is an Assistant professor of Anthropology at UAB. She is an ecological anthropologists specializing in Amazon Indians. She also works with the Guaja Indian, a hunter-gatherer group in the Brazilian rain forest.

Together, along with Janice Kluge of UAB Art department, they co-teach an interdisciplinary and experimental class called "Ethnographic filmmaking in Anthropology," which teaches students how to document and analyze aspects of human social life using video technology and the methodologies of anthropology. They are currently teaching the film class this semester with the Honors program, which will make it the third time it has been offered.

10:50 AM

Videoconferencing as an Enabling Tool for Project Actvities: a Case Study of "Imagining the Future" Project (Dr. Amela Sadagic, Advanced Network & Services) powerpoint file

"Imagining the Future" is a three-year umbrella project that invites students and educators to explore how young people learn when they have access to advanced technologies, including high-performance broadband networks (primarily Internet2 but also wireless networks), large-scale public digital resources, rich digital media, and powerful platforms for creating educational products. More specifically, this project provides a diverse set of activities and tools to facilitate the process of imagining and prototyping students' vision of future learning systems. This talk will detail our experiences in using H.323 videoconferencing system. We will provide our insights and lessons learned on how we coupled this system with a set of creative activities that ranged from multipoint connections to support expert presentations given by leading scientists, over smaller group activities, to one-to-one sessions with teachers and student teams. The overview of other supportive environments and tools that we used in conjunction with videoconferencing tools will be also described. "Imagining the Future" project is closely related to our efforts and work in Internet2 K-20 initiative.

http://www.thinkquest.org/future

Dr. Amela Sadagic works as a Senior Computer Science Researcher with Advanced Network and Services, Armonk, NY. She currently leads a project called "Imagining the Future" which represents company efforts aimed towards an active involvement of K-12 community in exploring current and new avenues in advanced digital technologies and broadband networking, and their effective deployment in applications for education. In addition to this work she chairs the Application QoS Needs Design Team, one of 4 design teams within Internet2 QoS Working Group.

In 1999 and 2000 Dr. Sadagic was responsible for technical coordination of multiple US university research teams that took part in National Tele-Immersion Initiative, an Internet2 project sponsored by Advanced Network and Services. In the past she thought computer graphics courses at the University of Westminster in London, UK, and the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and worked for five years as a research engineer in the Institute for Automatics and Computer Science in Sarajevo.

Dr. Sadagic regularly contributes and publishes articles in professional journals and conferences, and is a member of several professionally related review committees. Dr. Sadagic holds the degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Sarajevo, and PhD degree in Computer Science from the University College London.

11:15 AM

Network Kansas City (Peter Morello, Assistant Professor of Broadcast Journalism, Communications Studies Department, University of Missouri, Kansas City) powerpoint file

Network Kansas City is one of the country's first and perhaps largest endeavors in convergence on a citywide scale. Cross-media partners include: The University of Missouri, Kansas City, led by Professor Morello; The Kansas City Star; Kansas City Public Television, Channel 19; Carter Broadcasting, Kansas City's radio network for African-American listeners; KCUR, an NPR affiliate; KCTV, CBS affiliate Channel 5 will join for upcoming episodes. Although dependent on new technologies, Network KC is driven primarily by content. Network KC aims to further connect this latticework of video, audio and text through coverage of the 2002 Congressional Elections. Network KC will cross-promote project activities in all partner media outlets, providing Kansas City residents with in-depth coverage and broader understanding of local, national, and international issues. Other issues covered by Network KC include transportation and managing the economic slowdown after 9/11. Cross-media coverage has been well received by the public, and praised by news media research organizations like the Poynter Institute.

NetworkKC

Peter Morello was correspondent for PBS in Europe for 14 years ('84 to '98). He covered the break up of the Soviet Union, the rise of democracy in eastern and central Europe, the war in Bosnia, UN relief efforts in Somalia, and many other political and human-interest topics. In 1998, he was awarded a fellowship to study at Columbia University in New York. His concentration was political science, law, and new media. He joined the University of Missouri in Kansas City two years ago and taught broadcast journalism.

Although he uses the Internet as a vehicle, he is interested in the medium for it's content and community service values. He teaches his students that the Internet, or something like it, will eventually become the primary medium. That is one reason why he helped establish Network KC last year.

11:45 AM - 1:30 PM

Lunch and exhibitor interaction opportunity in the Great Hall

1:30 PM

Introduction to ViDe (Jill Gemmill, ViDe Chair) in the Hill University Center Alumni Auditorium.

Jill Gemmill is Assistant Director of UAB's Academic Computing Department. Jill was initiator of the Internet2 program at UAB and has made significant contributions to the establishment of a high-speed network backbone for Alabama research and education institutions that is connected to national and international networks. She is the current chair of ViDe and is actively involved in the Video Middleware project and development of collaborative tools and middleware services at her university. Her educational background includes Master' degrees in Computer Science and also Electrical Engineering, and her professional experience includes developing software for biological science data collection, analysis and visualization.

1:40 PM

In-Depth Case Study: Leveraging separate initiatives to create a single collaborative statewide video network (Gerry Dube, Director, Univeristy of Maine System Network [UNET]) powerpoint file

Over the past 5 years a number of institutions in the State of Maine have undertaken major video conferencing projects to support research initiatives in the marine and bio sciences as well as distance education for K12 and higher education. Collaboration between these projects has leveraged available funding to build a high speed broadband network that delivers multiple stream, high quality video using MPEG2 compression to participating sites. The network also includes H.32x services, provides an interoperability solution between MPEG2 and H.32x sites, and is controlled by a central scheduler with distributed administration. The presentation will cover the architecture of the network and highlight how it is used by the participating institutions in supporting their individual needs.

Gerald F. Dube is Director of UNET, the University of Maine System Network. He also holds a faculty position as Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maine. He received his BA (1963) and his MA (1964) degrees from the University of Maine. He has been at the University since 1964.

In his capacity as Director, Mr. Dube is responsible for the overall operation and technical support of a system-wide computing facility that provides services to all seven campuses of the university system. Since 1988 he has designed and directed the implementation of a state-wide wide area network providing services to all campuses and numerous off campus sites. The backbone of this network has grown into a multi-megabit network serving many educational institutions, the State of Maine, and many non-profit organizations in addition to the university system.

In 1996, Mr. Dube submitted a plan to deploy, operate, and support a Maine PUC mandated wide area network connecting all the schools and libraries in the State of Maine. The plan was approved and the university was selected as the operators and managers of the network. Over 1000 sites are now connected to this Maine Schools and Library network.

Breakout Sessions -- In-Depth Topics in Digital Video (2:30 PM until 5:30 PM)

The following sessions run concurrently on Wednesday afternoon:

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Reception in the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences and the Ireland Room in the Lister Hill Library.

Welcome: Joan Lorden, Ph. D., UAB Associate Provost for Research and SURA Executive Board member

ViDe Videoconferencing Cookbook Kick-off - hear about what's new in Version 3.0! Surprises and prizes. (Mary Fran Yafchak, SURA and Mary Trauner, Georgia Tech, Cookbook Editors)

Thursday 4/25, 8 AM until 3:30 PM

Morning session: Emerging & Related Technologies

7:00 AM

Full breakfast served in the Great Hall at Hill University Center.

8:00 AM

Morning Welcome and Session Introduction (Mary Fran Yafchak, SURA) in the Hill University Center Alumni Auditorium.

8:10 AM

VidMid-VC: Middleware for Video Conferencing Services (Egon Verharen, Innovation Manager, SURFnet; VidMid-VC Chair) powerpoint file

Video has long been seen as a killer application, especially on advanced networks, for both its conferencing and its streaming modes. Deployments have been limited and primitive in large part due to the lack of a middleware infrastructure to make the application usage easily accessible to typical users. The solutions to the above will attempt to leverage federated administration. Federated administration describes the emerging model where autonomous systems or enterprises form communities of interest to exchange management data. In higher education, campuses will group together into federations to share resources and build collaborative environments.The Vidmid working group, a partnership of Internet2 and ViDe, has been working on these issues and recently has made significant progress in defining requirements and developing architectural alternatives. This session will include a report from the videoconferencing subgroup on authentication and authorization flows, directory and objectclass issues, and naming and resource discovery.

dr.ir. Egon M. Verharen is innovation manager at SURFnet, the Dutch national research network, where he is responsible for the innovation projects on digital video. He was chair of TF-STREAM, the TERENA (European Education and Research Network) taskforce on videostreaming and conferencing, is a member of the ViDe steering committee, the Internet2 Digital Video initiative steering committee, the Internet2 Commons management team and is chair of Vidmid-vc, the Internet2 Middleware initiative/ViDe workgroup on videoconferencing middleware.
Formerly an assistant professor on Information technology at Tiburg University, where he received his PhD on research on intelligent agents, Egon joined SURFnet in 1997 where he has been working on the development of advanced internet applications and services.

8:45 AM

ViDe Developments for Video on Demand (Mairead Martin, Director of Advanced Internet Techologies, University of Tennessee; VidMid-VOD Chair; ViDe MPEG-4 Chair and Video Access Co-Chair) powerpoint file

This presentation will present an overview of ViDe work being conducted on video-on-demand. There are currently three ViDe video-on-demand working groups - Video Access, MPEG-4, and VidMid Video-on-Demand. The latter is a collaboration with the Internet2 Middleware Initiative. Digital rights management, metadata application profiles, and MPEG-4 applications are some of the issues and work currently underway for these working groups. The presentation will describe these efforts in detail, and offer participants the opportunity to become actively engaged in this work.

Mairead Martin is the director of Advanced Internet Technologies at The University of Tennessee. She is a founding member of the Video Development Initiative (ViDe), and was chair of ViDe from 1998 - 99, and currently chairs the ViDe MPEG-4 Working Group, and the VidMid Video-on-Demand Working Group. Current projects include digital rights management, rights metadata development, digital library applications, and middleware for digital video applications.

9:20 AM

Coffee Break in the Great Hall

9:45 AM

The Development of Ultra VC Applications and Technology (John Roston, Jeremy Cooperstock)

Ultra Videoconferencing technology is being developed as part of the McGill Advanced Learnware Network project. Its objective is to establish an ongoing network for the production, distribution and use of advanced educational materials and tools using high-quality digital audio and video over CA*net 3 and Internet2. The project has a number of components, but the one that will be discussed involves the transmission of broadcast standard digital video and multi-channel digital audio for concerts, recordings and master classes in Music. It involves sending wide screen (16:9 aspect ratio) broadcast quality video (SDI) as it comes out of a studio camera uncompressed to the far end at over 200 Mbps using proprietary software. Audio is a minimum of four uncompressed channels of recording studio quality (24 bits, 96 kHz). Mention will also be made of a related project that provides remote sign language interpretation for deaf patients at a health care facility where a physician and deaf patient in one city make use of a sign language interpreter in another.

John Roston is the Director of the Instructional Communications Centre, McGill University's centralized professional facility for video production, video conferencing, graphic design and the use of technology in teaching. He has 30 years experience in media production and use including 10 years in the design and programming of interactive video programs. He is the Coordinator for the research project "McGill Advanced Learnware Network" which is developing "Ultra Videoconferencing" for the transmission of high quality video and audio over IP networks and for the related project "Remote Video Sign Language Interpretation."

Jeremy Cooperstock is an assistant professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines, and a founding member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill University. Cooperstock leads the technical development of McGill's ultra-videoconferencing system, and is also developing the Shared Reality Environment, a space that provides distributed individuals the experience of being in the same room at the same time. His work has been recognized with the ITRC (now CITO) award for Increasing Awareness in Leading Edge Technology and a Distinction Award from the Audio Engineering Society.

10:20 AM

Internet2 QoS and Video: Sharing Responsibility to Overcome Congestion-Related Performance Problems (Ben Teitelbaum, Senior Engineer, Internet2, & Dr. Amela Sadagic, Advanced Network & Services) .pdf file

Since its inception, one of the primary technical objectives of Internet2 has been to engineer scalable, interoperable, and administrable interdomain Quality of Service (QoS) to support an evolving set of new advanced networked applications. Facing a set of intractable deployment obstacles, the Internet2 QoS program has shifted its focus from building an EF-based, virtual circuit service, dubbed the "QBone Premium Service", to designing and deploying non-elevated services that deploy incrementally, with no policing.This talk will survey the inherent QoS requirements of videoconferencing, together with the QoS requirements of current H.323 internet videoconferencing systems. We will also discuss the enormous challenges facing elevated forms of QoS like the QBone Premium Service and look ahead to non-elevated services that can support latency-sensitive application like videoconferencing. Engineering advanced applications and advanced network infrastructure in concert requires careful consideration of where to add complexity. We will discuss these engineering trade-offs in the context of QoS and internet videoconferencing.

10:55 AM

Low Cost Satellite Internet Access for Distance Learning in Rural Areas (Dr. Bob Dixon, Chief Research Engineer, Ohio State University and OARNet) powerpoint file

The American Distance Education Consortium is deploying low-cost satellite internet access systems at minority colleges throughout the country. About 50 are in operation so far, used predominently for web-based instruction. Video conferencing applications are being added as the speed and quality of the connectivity improves. A portable trailer-mounted version of the system is being developed for use in circuit-riding distance learning, and at special events such as fairs and conferences.

Bob Dixon is the Chief Research Engineer at Ohio State University and OARNet. He worked with Mary Fran Yafchak "in the beginning" to pioneer Internet video conferencing. Dixon is the organizer of the Megaconferences. He is a member of ViDe, Internet2 Digital Video Group, CIC Digital Video Group, ADEC Engineering Group, and the Internet2 Commons Management Team. Dixon is the H.323 instructor for OARNet, CIC, and Internet2. He is currently active in satellite-based video conferencing.

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Lunch and exhibitor interaction opportunity in the Great Hall

ViDe Streaming Video Cookbook BoF (led by Mike Estler; room 411, Hill University Center) If you have ideas for what should be in this new ViDe cookbook or if you're interested in contributing to the project, bring your lunch up and take part in this BoF.

Shared Perspectives: Vendor/Developer Panels

12:30-2:00 PM

Data Collaboration (Mary Trauner, moderator) with Ezenia, Polycom, Mercury International Technology, Inc.

As the novelty of virtual meetings wears off and as we become more reliant on them in our natural workflow, so will our need for virtual services increase. We will need whiteboard services. We will want to work together on budgets and reports. We will want side chats with "the person next to us" for help or comments. Instructors will want to share course material with the students. The audience will want to send questions or opinions to the presenter. Extended work groups will need group document storage. Instructors and researchers will need sharing approaches that support the higher bandwidth needs of medical, scientific, and engineering applications.

The members of this panel represent developers with different approaches to serving these needs. During the session, each representative will provide an introduction and demo of their data collaboration system. Remaining time will be spent on an open dialog with the audience.

2:00- 3:00 PM

Firewalls / NATs / Security (Tyler Johnson, moderator vai H.323) with Mike Burkett, Ridgeway Systems; Yoav Nativ, RADVISION;
Samir Chatterjee, Claremont Graduate University (via h.323)

Security has become a paramount concern for IP communications. What security standards exist for h.323 and SIP and how do they work? How do you get video to traverse firewalls and navigate the proliferating NAT maze? What are the ways in which security can be compromised on video over IP systems? This panel of video and voice over IP experts will discuss technical standards and implementation considerations for video and voice over IP.

2:00 Introduction. Tyler Johnson
2:00 Firewalls and NAT in h.323 and SIP, Mike Burkett powerpoint file
2:15 Discussion
2:20 Threat Models for h.323 and SIP, Samir Chatterjee powerpoint file
2:35 Discussion
2:40 h.235 Authentication and Encryption, Adi Regev, Sasha Ruditsky powerpoint file
2:55 Discussion

Tyler Miller Johnson is a network engineer with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Tyler is a founding member of ViDe and leads the engineering efforts associated with the ViDeNet project. He is also involved with the Video Middleware project, developing directory services architectures for video and voice over IP.